"Your country owes you a great debt of gratitude," Waxman told Jutkins.

"This Veterans Day will be different, that's for sure," Jutkins said.

Friends of Jutkins, a retired former principal clerk at UCLA's Institute for Social Science Research, had encouraged him to appeal the Navy's 1946 bad-conduct discharge.

He had grown up in the Mojave Desert isolated from others his age.

"There were no other kids. In the service, I finally met guys my own age. They became my friends," Jutkins said. "One glass of beer was enough to get me drunk. "

He said he returned to his ship late several times, was considered AWOL and once ended up in the brig after getting drunk.

A friend, Joe Carafello, helped Jutkins write an appeal of the bad-conduct discharge to the Naval Review Board. The appeal noted the medals Jutkins had earned, his participation in a high school ROTC program and his having stopped drinking 47 years ago.